'It's pandemonium,' said Captain Hillary at length. 'Utter, bloody pandemonium. I'll take out the rotor arm and then I suggest we leave the car here for the moment. I'll have a look on the beach. You, Corporal, try and get along the sea wall, and Sergeant, go into the town. They'll only have been here a short time, so hopefully they won't be too far along in these queues. But let's face it, the chances of us finding them can't be high. We'll give it a go, then head back.' He looked at his watch. 'It's a quarter to one. Let's meet back here at two.'
Tanner slung his rifle across his shoulder and brought the MP35 to his waist. Since his ducking in the moat, he had stripped and cleaned the sub-machine-gun twice, then dried and oiled the bullets in the magazine he'd had loaded at the time. Now it worked perfectly. Like the Spandaus they had captured in Norway and in France, he reckoned the weapon was a masterpiece of engineering - nicely balanced, beautifully put together and with some fine touches of workmanship, like the safety catch above the trigger that was so easy to click on and off. He still had another half-dozen magazines in his respirator bag, but after that the sub-machine-gun would be useless, unless he could find some more of the same calibre bullets. Perhaps, he thought, he would hand it over to someone at Enfield or in the War Office if he ever made it back - he reckoned the British Army could do with a weapon like it.
He wandered along the seafront a short distance, then cut along a back-street towards the centre of Dunkirk. Electricity cables lay on the ground, while halfway down another house had been blown out. He trudged on towards the port and saw some British troops coming towards him. Glancing at their sleeves he saw they were gunners, not Yorkshire Rangers.
'Who are you looking for, mate?' one of them asked.
'Yorks Rangers. Seen any?'
'Try the cellars. Most people have been hiding in them. It's the only safe place around here.'
'Cheers.'
He entered the nearest building, and immediately heard men coughing. A cellar door ran off the main hallway and it was open. He nearly gagged at the stench of alcohol, sweat, damp and stale urine. He shone a torch inside but blank faces stared back at him, not just soldiers but women and children too.
'Any Yorks Rangers here?' he asked. No one answered.
He tried several more buildings near the port, but got the same empty reply from each, then headed back towards the seafront at Malo-les-Bains to check the cellars there. This place, he thought, as half a dozen Junkers 88s swept over. He crouched in the middle of the road, and a moment later the bombers dropped their loads, which whistled, then exploded. The ground quivered and, not a hundred yards away, he heard a great crash of tumbling masonry, wood and glass.
At the sound of footsteps he swung round. A group of soldiers was running towards him and at the end of the street three men were hurrying in the direction of the mole. His heart raced. In a moment the three men had passed out of his view but he was sure that two of them had been Blackstone and Slater. They couldn't have been, he told himself, but already he was running back down the street. At the end he looked back towards the seafront and the mass of soldiers. 'Where the hell did they go?' he muttered, and set off again. Other troops were walking along the street, blocking his view, but suddenly he saw them again, eighty yards ahead. He ran on, faster, then lost them once more as another group of soldiers cut in. 'Damn it!' Tanner cursed. He ran on, pushing past some, swerving between others, then paused briefly to look into one of the streets that ran parallel with the seafront. Nothing.
'Sarge!' came a shout. He turned to see Sykes thirty yards away, coming towards him.
Waving for him to follow, Tanner ran on until he reached the seafront and saw their car still waiting at the side of the road. He stopped again to scan the troops wandering mindlessly along the corniche.
'Who have you found?' panted Sykes, as he reached him.
'Blackstone and Slater,' said Tanner, still craning his neck. 'I'm not a hundred per cent sure but it looked like them.'
Sykes joined him in gazing along the seafront. 'There! Sarge, up ahead! It was them! It was!'
Tanner set off again, Sykes following. Now he could see them too. They were walking quickly, not running, and Tanner and Sykes were gaining on them. Suddenly, the three men stepped off the road and into a building under a shredded cafe awning, but as Tanner and Sykes drew level they saw that the awnings covered not one but two cafes, and that there were two more doors as well.
'Damn!' said Tanner. 'Where have they gone?'
'Let's try the cafes first. I'll go into this one and you check next door,' said Sykes.
Tanner nodded. Inside, at least thirty men sat either drinking or sleeping. Bottles lay smashed on the floor, while the mirror behind the bar was also broken. 'Anyone see three men come in?' Tanner demanded.
'Cellar's next door,' a soldier replied. 'You're not redcaps, are you?'
Tanner hurried out and through the door to the side. A corridor ran along the cafe wall, and at the end a staircase led up and down. He went up first, searching each room of the house above the cafe. On the second floor, he opened a bedroom door to find a soldier with a French girl. She screamed, as though she was more terrified of him than of the bombs. Apologizing, he backed out and, having finished his search, went down to the ground floor and descended the stairs to the cellar.
There was light down there from several hurricane lamps, the same stench of sweat and urine. 'Did three men just come in?' he asked again.
'They've gone on down,' said a bloody-faced man. 'These cellars are deep.'
Tanner thanked him and picked his way through the bodies coughing and wheezing on the damp floor. Seeing more steps down, he took them. There were men below, but the light was dim. Taking out his torch, he now saw there were several chambers. 'I'm looking for three men that have just come in,' he said. Shining his torch on the man at his feet he was startled to see the black and green shoulder tab of the Yorkshire Rangers. He grabbed the man's collar and recognized him immediately as one of Blackstone's group.
'Where the hell are Blackstone and Slater?' he demanded.
'What?' mumbled the man and Tanner smelled the alcohol on his breath.
'Come on, wake up!' he said. 'Where are Blackstone and Slater?'
A footstep behind, and suddenly something was prodding into his back. I've found them.
'Well, well,' said Slater. 'Jack Tanner. You just keep turning up, like a bad penny. I can't tell you how fed up I am of seeing you. Why won't you ever die?'
Tanner half turned. Slater wore an ugly snarl. 'Because, Slater,' he said, in a low, measured voice, 'if you want to kill someone, you have to do it properly and you have to do it face to face. But you and Blackstone never do that - you always leave too much to chance.' He stood up slowly, his back to the other man. The revolver muzzle pressed harder into his side.
Slater chuckled mirthlessly, then breathed into Tanner's ear, 'Do you know what? I think you're right.'